


Hair: Mulder Family Style

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 06:45:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8834467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: A little bit of fluff for @jennfairkiss on Tumblr and her story idea involving curling Emily’s hair.





	

The yelp was deep and angry, serious. Mulder hesitated outside the door. He could hear Scully’s raised voice and he knew Emily would begin to cry. Any. Minute. Now. He held his hand at the level of the door handle, waiting…waiting.

“Ow! Mom! That hurt.” The crying was messy. He could tell from the sniffling and the silence between sobs. There was a muffled thump, another strangled curse and the door flew open, nearly taking his hand with it.

“Everything okay?” He wasn’t actually sure who he was addressing. Scully rushed past and thundered down the stairs. Emily flopped on her bed and bashed the life out of her pillow. He sighed, tension throbbing in his temples. He closed the door and wondered how life with children was scarier than life with The X-Files.

“Hey, Dad. Wanna shoot some hoops?” William was carrying a basketball under his arm and to Mulder it represented a salvation purer than the truth.

Will was still on the short side but his enthusiasm outweighed his lack of height. He ran rings round Mulder, weaving and bouncing, shooting straight balls and curved shots. When Mulder finally netted one, he collapsed to the ground. “I’m done, Will. Your old man is whacked.”

“Maybe Mom should challenge Emily to a game. They could burn off all their stress on the court instead of on each other.”

Mulder slung his arm around his son’s shoulders as they headed in from the yard. “What do you know about curling hair, Will?”

William’s brows lowered over his eyes, his nose wrinkled, he pursed his lips and he tucked his chin to his neck. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. We need to get your sister’s hair right for the dance. And we need to get your Mom back in your sister’s good books.”

William opened the back door and jogged up the steps to the back door. “Why don’t you just book her an appointment at a salon?”

Scully was at the kitchen table leafing through magazines at the kitchen table. Mulder looked at her, raising his eyebrows. “Yeah, why don’t we do that, Scully?”

She heaved out a sigh. “Because, Mulder, every time she wants a new hair style we’ll have to book her an appointment at the salon. And it’s hair. And it’s just a set of curling tongs. It shouldn’t be this hard.”

Will lugged the milk carton to the table and poured himself a glass. “And you don’t want to be defeated by just a set of curling tongs.”

Chuckling, Mulder ruffled Will’s hair. “Your mother doesn’t like being defeated by anything.”

“Government conspiracies couldn’t beat her,” Will said, grinning with a milk moustache at his Dad. “So curling tongs definitely won’t.”

Even Scully cracked a smile. “What you two privileged males who only have to brush their hair and teeth every morning to pass muster in this patriarchal society forget is that Emily is going through some changes and her…”

“If you say the ‘h’ word I’ll throw up in my mouth, Mom.”

“I’ll say the ‘p’ word if you’re not careful, young man. Your sister needs our support. Everything is hard for her at the moment. She’s growing up and it’s not a nice world out there for young women. Self-image is important, self-worth is even more so. That’s why we’re trying to help her. And,” she added with a wink, “if I can get back into her good books, that will be a bonus.”

Mulder whisked his fingers down the cleft in Scully’s back, lingering at the flare of hips before stroking back up to her neck again. He planted wet kisses along her shoulders, licking the curve of the bone. He lifted her hair and kissed the side of her neck, mouthing the stray hairs at her nape.

“I remember when your hair used to go frizzy on cases and you’d spend hours blow-drying it straight. I always loved dozing off the sound of your hairdryer buzzing through the walls of motel rooms.”

She huffed. “It was always moist in the forest. And I couldn’t have you seeing my wild curls so early on in our relationship.”

“You don’t think I peeked at any of your Yearbook photos, Scully? That one of you in eighth grade with that cowl-neck sweater in some hideous shade of mustard. You had beautiful ringlets down the side of your face.”

She turned over and giggled into his chest. “That sweater was crafted by some maiden aunt who came to knitting quite late in her life. Mom made me wear it for the photo. Missy laughed her head off.”

“I bet she did. She would have been one of the cool kids wearing some wide-collared shirt in disco silver or something.”

“She was certainly way cooler than me. I bet she could have used those damned curling tongs.”

He chuffed a laugh. “Why doesn’t Emily like her hair? It’s straight. I thought that was in these days?”

“Mulder, nobody is ever happy with what they’ve got.”

He flicked his thumb over her nipple. “I am,” he said, lowering his head.

William was sprawled out over a beanbag in the study, laptop open, iPad on, magazines piled beside him.

Mulder sat on the couch. “I’m guessing you’re not doing your homework.”

“Not in the widely-accepted definition of the term, no.”

“May I remind you William Mulder, your assignment on, what is it, ‘Social Media in the 21st Century: is it making us selfish?’ is not going to write itself.

Will grinned up at him. “Ah, but that’s the thing. I’m not going to write it. I’m going to demonstrate my argument using the tools of the 21st Century.”

“Why do I get the feeling that you’re planning something your mother might not approve of…but that I might?”

Emily took a lot of convincing. She had a mini-tornado of a meltdown when she saw Will with his video camera, the curling tongs and the YouTube window open on the iPad. But Will had something of the Mulder about him when it came to offering a non-judgmental ear, to truly and actively listening, to finding the delicate counterbalance between empathy and sympathy.

“You promise I’ll get to watch it before and after you edit it?” Her eyes were still wet with tears. “And you promise you know how to operate these?” She waggled the tongs in front of him.

“I have studied all forms of hair curling techniques from ragging to hot rollers, from braiding to tulip wands. There are mousses and gels, pins and clips and all manner of torture devices out there, Emily. I have watched twenty-seven tutorials using the Remington brand we have here. But more than that, I have inherited certain personality traits from our parents that I can put to the best use to help you, my favorite sister.”

“I’m your only sister, Buttmunch.”

“I’m leaving that bit in if you don’t retract it,” Will said, poking out his tongue.

“Get on with it, William Scully,” Mulder warned.

Will cleared his throat. “I have inherited from Dad,” he looked at Mulder, who was holding the video camera. Mulder winked at him. “a clarity of thought and reasoning like no other.”

Emily snorted.

Will nodded at Scully. “I have inherited from Mum, the steadiest hand and the minutest attention to detail.”

Scully smiled gently and looked down at her feet. Mulder knew she was keeping back those tears.

“And I have inherited from both of them the strengths of their beliefs.” He paused for dramatic effect and finished his speech by lifting the Remington into the air. “The curling tongs will not defeat us.”

Emily’s golden strands of hair hung flat down her back. William picked up the heated tongs. Scully fingered her gold cross and held her breath. Mulder zoomed in and watched with a mixture of disbelief and swelling pride as William teased, twisted, sculpted and primped his sister’s hair into the kind of waterfall curls that fell perfectly around her shoulders. He finished with a flourish, an exaggerated puff of hairspray and bowed for the camera. William twisted the seat around so that Emily faced her parents. He held up a mirror. Emily stared at her reflection and promptly burst into an ugly-cry. William turned in horror back to his parents.

Scully moved forward and drew him into an embrace, her own tears falling onto her head. “It’s okay, Will. They’re happy tears.”

“How can you tell?”

Mulder joined in the hug. “I’m fifty and I still haven’t learnt the difference, son.”

William slung his school bag down on the floor so that it skittered across the shiny boards coming to rest against the kitchen counter.

“Shoes in the shoe box, bag in the laundry, you know the drill,” Scully said as she deposited a plate of sandwiches on the counter top.

Mulder poked his head from around the study. “Is that our very own Steven Spielberg back home?”

Will leapt onto a stool and ploughed into the sandwiches.

“Did you get your grade back for your assignment?”

“Yep. I got an A.”

Scully smiled. “Of course you did. You inherited that from me.”

Mulder threw his hands up. “Which one of us has a degree from Oxford University?”

“Which one of us rewrote Einstein?”

Emily wandered in. “Hey Buttmunch, what did your teacher say?”

“He said, and this is kind of like the worst Dad joke of the century,” he eyed Mulder who just grinned back, “that it was a new twist on the assignment, that I showed a lot of style and that I outscored everyone by a hair’s breadth.” Everyone groaned. Will continued. “But more impressive was the viral reach of the short film ‘Emily’s Family Style’ which attracted a total audience of…”

Emily flattened her palm against her forehead. “Will, no more stats, please.”

“He gets that from you,” Mulder said, shooting a glance at Scully.

“What? You have the eidetic memory.”

“Mom, Dad, enough,” Emily said. “I did want to say thank you to you all for your help with my…crisis… even though you turned my hair into a video clip. Which is kind of embarrassing but also kind of neat. And the fact that the clip has gone viral kind and lived up to its name, which fits perfectly with our family style.”

Mulder frowned. “Whoa, hold on. What’s our family style? Scully, am I missing something here?”

Scully shrugged. “I have no idea. Kids, what’s our family style?”

Emily and Will looked at each and burst into simultaneous giggles. “Didn’t you know? Spooky. We’re the Spooky Mulders.”


End file.
